More than 20 die in Japan’s worst earthquake in years

THOUSANDS of weary and frightened residents in northern Japan were spending a second night in shelters, cars or in the open yesterday after Japan’s deadliest earthquake in nine years killed at least 21 people.

More than 2,100 were injured when the 6.8 magnitude quake and a series of powerful aftershocks struck rural Niigata prefecture, about 250 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, on

Saturday, setting off landslides, wrecking houses and buckling railway tracks.